Pages

Friday, June 23, 2017

You Homeschool? You Must Be So Organized!

I call myself a paper planner dinosaur. However, I still haven't
found the "perfect" homeschool planner, so when I got a chance to review
an online planner, I was very willing to take it on and give it a
chance. Yes, I love how pretty my paper planner is, but I will admit
that there are moments that it's not ideal. I'm always willing to try
something new to get organized. With Homeschool Planet from Homeschool Buyers Co-op I can do so much more than just creating assignments!

Set
up is easy and can take either no time at all, or plenty, depending on
how much you like to play with design. The first thing I did is
make everyone an account. It is VERY user friendly and easy to set up
"My Family." This allows you to add everyone on that you want to be able
to access this planner. That way everyone can always see exactly what's
going on. It even allows you to have separate log ins (which I didn't
think my kids were ready for yet). But when they are older, the
kids can check their assignments easily. You can customize the look, and
honestly, I could have spent hours tweaking it. You have the option to
keep it on month view, week (always my choice) or daily. If
you are looking for an online all in one planner, this is definitely
for you. They have literally thought of everything to make all aspects
of planning in your life simple. Realize mid-planning that you're out of
glue? Add it to the shopping list. Realize that reading a certain book
would help your history lesson pop? Add it to your reading list. It is
available on laptop or mobile, so
you can have easy access to your planner no matter where you are. And
if you want to print anything out, you can. Truly, you have every option
you would have with pencil and paper.

Now
so far, I'm just discussing, and showing you, an online planner. It's a
nice one. But it's a planner that you could use for anything, not just
homeschool. I liked it - a lot - but I wasn't ready to toss my beautiful
paper planner.

Adding
classes is when I realized that I actually do need this in my life. You
create a class - as general (math) or specific (Math Mammoth grade 2)
as you like. Add the students you want - I have both girls doing
history, science, and things like that together, but separate for
reading, writing, and math. Pick how many days a week you want to work.
Choose how long you want the class to last (math might take all year, a
unit study for history might have a six week time span.) Enter
assignments. You can track days in school. You can generate reports. You can add notes about issues. You
can take days off, you can adjust on the fly, but it truly does
organize you and keep you moving toward a very organized homeschool
life. I've been so worried about how I'm going to balance having both
girls home full time with me, and this truly could take that worry and
make it moot.Full
disclosure - as much as I'm gushing - and I am - I haven't been using
this as thoroughly as I could for classes since we're heading into
summer. I am actually looking forward to sitting down and planning out
next year!
If the planner itself wasn't enough, there is a Lesson Plan Marketplace. They
have professionally designed lesson plans that coordinate with your
curriculum. You can purchase what you need (note: you are not purchasing
the curriculum, just the plan) and they
will fit right into your planner. It takes the guess work out of trying
to do it yourself. If you sign up this month in June for a FREE one
month trial, they are offering you a FREE lesson plan that is worth $5
to $15. There is no reason not to try it! I added Math Mammoth for grade
2 since we loved this curriculum so much when we switched to it back in
the winter. I haven't gotten to truly use it yet, because we are
finishing up our last bit of grade 1, but I was so excited to have it
available.

I have to say this is one of those things that I loved much more than I
thought I would. The lesson planner, lesson plan marketplace, and
ability to keep all of my homeschool organization in one place is
definitely a win!

Popular Posts

Blog Archive

Affiliate Links

I only share what I think you'll love as much as I do! These links take you directly to the website, where, if you are so inclined to love what I love and purchase for yourself, I get a very small percentage that helps me keep this blog running. Thank you for supporting my site!